A. Deborah Baker > Quotes

“Girls who are ignored can learn to be impossible, can learn to listen, and look, and learn more than they were ever meant to know.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Sometimes anger is a good, true thing, because the world is so often unfair, and unfairness deserves to be acknowledged. But all too often, anger is another feeling in its Sunday clothes, sadness or envy or--most dangerous of all--fear.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“It's fine not knowing things. Not knowing things means you have room to learn, and learning's about the most important thing there is,”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“No one looks like a girl, or a boy, or an elm tree, or anything else. Someone either is or isn't a thing, and the world can put as many layers on top of the thing as it likes; won't change what's underneath.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Frightened means you've the sense to be afraid, and it's cowards who get things done, more often than not.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“None of her seemed to be missing, but it was impossible to see every part of a person, wasn't it? People were like treasure chests, full of secrets that never saw the light of day.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“The very best monsters speak like kings and queens, eloquent and alluring, and the trick is learning not to listen. If you listen to those monsters, they’ll have your heart out before you realize how much danger you’re in.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“It is a myth that goodness is always lovely and wickedness is always dreadful to behold; the people who say such things have reason for their claims and would rather those reasons not be overly explored.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Sometimes anger is a good, true thing, because the world is so often unfair, and unfairness deserves to be acknowledged. But all too often, anger is another feeling in its Sunday clothes, sadness or envy or—most dangerous of all—fear.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Everyone has another self inside them who comes out when they feel the time is right. For most people, that second self is summoned by fear or panic, which are similar and not the same. For others, that second self is brought out by the feeling of love or safety. The trick with second selves is not learning how to get rid of them -- which can't be done, no matter how hard a person tries -- but finding a way to teach them to be kinder, one simple step at a time. Even second selves can be taught the way of walking through the world transmuting harm into healing; even second selves can grow.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“Everyone has another self inside them who comes out when they feel the time is right. For most people, that second self is summoned by fear or panic, which are similar and not the same. For others, that second self is brought out by the feeling of love or safety. The trick with second selves is not learning how to get rid of them—which can’t be done, no matter how hard a person tries—but finding a way to teach them to be kinder, one simple step at a time. Even second selves can be taught the way of walking through the world transmuting harm into healing; even second selves can grow.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“This was a part of me and now it’s gone, and it’s never going to come back again, and I don’t know what it was before it left me; I can’t know, because once a thing is broken past repairing, it doesn’t return.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“A piece can represent the whole,” said Meadowsweet. “If the human child wants to hold up a branch and say it means the entire tree, I don’t see where it’s another human child’s place to stop it. Representative symbols are an essential piece of making so many things. Without them, we wouldn’t have maps, or books, or paintings. Peace, human child. Let your fellow be.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“It's better to forget a home than to lose it,”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“How can a place be both Up and Under," Avery asks at one point. "Up a tree’s still under the sky," the Crow Girl answers.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“We’re a poem in the process of being unwritten, a thought about to be unformed. We forget because remembering is bad for us.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Whoever knows more gets to explain the thing. It doesn't matter how much older you are, or how much smarter you think you are, if you don't know the thing, you don't get to be the teacher.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“It is kinder than it needs to be and cruel enough to be real.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Zib wasn’t sure what a heart was for, exactly: knew that grownups put a great deal of weight on whether or not she was listening to her heart over her head, knew that they were quite fond of telling her not to give it carelessly away. Even so, she couldn’t imagine a heart was meant to shatter, or that it was an event which should be treated quite so lightly.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“If they were both scared together, maybe things weren't so scary after all.
Fear was a large and terrible monster. But fear could be conquered if enough people stood up against it.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Traveling through the same story a second time is a form of alchemy.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Under the Smokestrewn Sky

“Bravery has its limits, no matter what the world.
Zib tugged on her hair, which sprang right back into place when she let it go.
"I don't think you're a monster," she said. "You're talking. You're threatening. But you're still talking, not just attacking. I don't think you're a monster at all."
"Some monsters speak, child," said the beast. "The very best monsters speak like kings and queens, eloquent and alluring. And the trick is learning not to listen. If you listen to those monsters, they'll have your heart out before you realize how much danger you are in.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“She's never going to forgive us for getting away from her."
Jibson nodded slowly. "Some people are like that," he said.
"I don't think she's people," said Avery. "A blizzard isn't people. A bad storm isn't people. The Page of Frozen Waters is more like those things than she is like a people."
"We can't decide who is and isn't people, even when we think we should be able to," said Jibson. "I've met a lot of people where it would have been easier to pretend that they weren't, but all the pretending there is wouldn't have changed what they were. As long as someone's still people, you have to treat them with kindness.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“I'm not very good at being a person," she said. "I think I lost the knack of it somewhere along the line, if I ever had the knack. But even I know you were just very cruel to her, and you should't be cruel to your friends when you have any other choice in the world. You need to go and apologize."
"What?" asked Avery again, disbelieving this time, like he couldn't understand what she was talking about. "Why should I apologize for telling her that she can't go outside in a storm and get herself killed? That is just common sense! Would you be asking me to apologize if I'd let her go and be sweped away?"
"No, because we wouldn't let you do that," said Niamh. "There's a difference between speaking truly and being cruel. You were cruel. You chose words you knew would hurt her, and you slung them like stones. Words have power. If they didn't, we wouldn't carry them the way we do. Sometimes, a word is the only weapon you have. Go apologize.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“I would say a strong king doesn’t need to play that kind of game with the people he claims to be protecting. I would say it wasn’t fair. The children don’t belong to you, and that means you shouldn’t be using them for bargaining.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“These were trees that seemed to aspire toward tangling the sun in their branches and burning away to ash for the sheer delight of it all.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“I don’t want to fight people either,” said Zib, making no move to offer the sword back to him. “That doesn’t mean I won’t, if they make me. I’ll keep you safe.” Avery smiled. “I know you will,” he said.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“Torture" is a big word to involve in a conversation about doing dishes; most people, when they hear it, will think of knives and needles and fiery brands pressed against unprotected skin. But the truth is, torture will take different forms for different people. Sometimes it can be hunger, or thirst, or cruel words. In Zib's case, it was the denial of adventure and the forced adherence to a part she had been refusing to play since the first time someone had spoken the word "girl" in her hearing.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Along the Saltwise Sea

“Avery and Zib might have stayed where they were, watching the stranger dwindle in the distance. They might have chosen to run, to seek other ways of warming themselves, for they were both reasonably cautious children with no interest in breaking their parents' hearts. But they were cold, and they were wet, and the Up-and-Under had a way of wearing such caution away, a little bit at a time, replacing them with curiosity and the quiet conviction that sometimes, the right thing was to follow.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall

“No, and no, and no. There’s a glory in refusal that I never thought I’d see.”
― A. Deborah Baker, Over the Woodward Wall